This invention relates to the field of integrated circuits. More particularly, this invention relates to bipolar transistors in integrated circuits.
Integrated circuits commonly include n-channel MOS (NMOS) transistors, p-channel MOS (PMOS) transistors, bipolar pnp transistors, bipolar npn transistors, diodes and resistors, in and on a semiconductor substrate. Doped regions in and on the semiconductor substrate that are parts of the transistors, diodes and resistors are typically formed by ion implantation or diffusion of dopant species into the substrate. In order to achieve more economical manufacturing, photolithographic, ion implantation and diffusion processes that are used to form MOS transistors are typically applied to regions containing bipolar transistors and diodes, thus eliminating the costs associated with separate, dedicated photolithographic, ion implantation and diffusion process operations for bipolar transistors and diodes. Dedicated process operations for a component are process operations that only affect regions containing that component. Components such as bipolar transistors and diodes that are formed without dedicated process operations are commonly known as parasitic components. For example, emitter regions of vertical bipolar pnp transistors are commonly implanted in the same operation as p-channel MOS transistor source and drain regions. Using ion implantation and diffusion operations from MOS transistors for forming bipolar transistors and diodes has a disadvantage of not optimizing performance parameters of the affected bipolar transistors and diodes, because process parameters for the ion implantation and diffusion operations are chosen to maximize selected parameters of the relevant MOS transistors. For example, parasitic vertical bipolar pnp transistors commonly have gains below 2, while vertical bipolar pnp transistors formed using dedicated processes commonly have gains above 10.
Resistors are typically formed using dedicated ion implantation and diffusion operations in order to achieve desired ranges of sheet resistivities.